Soybeans close with slight declines on a lukewarm day on the Chicago Stock Exchange
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The week started off lukewarm for the marketplace soybean futures on the Chicago Board of Trade. Despite this, oilseed futures traded throughout the day with modest variations, moving sideways, and concluded trading with small losses of 0.75 to 2.75 points across the main maturities. As a result, the August contract was at US$ 10.01 and the September contract at US$ 9.94 per bushel. Finally, the November contract, the benchmark for the new American crop, fell 0.50 points to close at US$ 10.08.
Traders lack new news. The market remains under pressure due to its fundamentals. Even so, traders remain closely focused on the geopolitical and macroeconomic scenarios. One focus is the dollar, which rose again this Monday, approaching the R$ 5.60 level. This movement also contributed to pressure on prices.
"Soybeans have been falling due to slow farmer selling and, especially, the weak pace of export sales of American soybeans," said analysts at Agrinvest Commodities on Monday afternoon.
USDA frustrates market and puts pressure on soybean prices in Chicago
And also today, the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) released its new weekly grain shipment report, with figures below market expectations, which acted as yet another factor of pressure on soybean prices. The pressure, however, is limited, since, last Friday (11), its monthly supply and demand report, despite the agency having reduced its estimate for exports for the 2025/26 harvest, raised it for the 2024/25 harvest.
"This is the first bad number for soybeans in a while. So it's not a problem yet. This is especially true after the USDA revised old-crop exports upward in its report last Friday (11)," explained international commodities analyst Karen Braun.
In the week ending July 10, US soybean shipments totaled 147,045 tons. However, the market was expecting a volume between 200,000 and 500,000 tons. With this result, total shipments in the 2024/25 harvest reach 46,411,264 million tons. This volume represents an increase of 10% compared to the same period last year.
Thus, the market is gradually shifting its attention between the old and new US crops. At the same time, it's also monitoring the pace of sales in Brazil, which has been slower in recent weeks—for both the old and new crops. Demand behavior is also under surveillance. China remains focused on Brazilian soybeans. Non-Chinese buyers, on the other hand, are closely monitoring US soybeans, which have proven to be more competitive at this time.